A sea change in the firearms debate

3:45 PM,
Jan. 24, 2013

Written by

Tina Dupuy

In August 1925, The New York Times estimated 50,000 - 60,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched in a parade in our nation's capital. It was a huge public display of the once-secret group. H.L. Mencken called it "a full mile of Klansmen and their ladies." The man sitting in the White House, Calvin Coolidge, was a member of the Klan. The president before him, Warren Harding, was also a noted Klansman. The fraternity preaching pure "100 percent Americanism" (anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant, anti-non-white) boasted of five million members - nearly 15 percent of the population in ...